It was, strangely enough, getting caught at 15 years old playing hooky from school that put him on a path into music.

His punishment: enrollment in the music theory course at his Newark, N.J., arts high school.

“The teacher was a disciplinarian, and before they sentenced me they asked me ‘Where do you go when you play hooky?’ And I said to the theater; one day they had a double feature film and a stage show,” Shorter said. “They said ‘You like stage shows, huh? Alright ... You kinda like the music, you like what’s going on on the stage, okay.’ They picked up the phone and called Achilles D’Amico, the teacher there and put me in his class.”